


Follow You Down

by nyxocity



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gore, Horror, M/M, Psychological Horror, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-31
Updated: 2012-10-31
Packaged: 2017-11-17 11:38:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/551147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nyxocity/pseuds/nyxocity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set during S6. Sam has disappeared, fallen off the grid in the middle of nowhere, and Dean is desperate, determined to find him. As Dean descends into an abandoned town in search of his brother, he discovers horrors too close and personal, only just beginning to understand that the cost to bring Sam back may be Dean's own sanity--or worse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Follow You Down

 

I.

The windshield wipers of the Impala slap back and forth in a hollow, repetitive rhythm, flakes of snow smearing against the glass. 

It’s a rhythm that works inside Dean's head; tick-tock, tick-tock.

Banks of white snow are piled high along the edges of a black ribbon road, double yellow lines snaking back and forth, and he knows he should be careful. Knows it doesn’t mean a goddamned thing.

Somewhere down this road is the place where Sam disappeared. Somewhere down this road, his brother is lost.

It’s been twenty-four hours and Dean’s barely slept. He doesn’t remember the last time he ate, doesn’t remember the last time he had a thought besides _Sam_.

Swish-swipe. Tick-tock.

Twenty-four hours since Sam went off the grid. 

The green-white of dashboard lights bathes him in its glow, and he could be blind for all that he sees it, fingers tapping out nervous time to the song on the radio.

The one lane bridge comes out of nowhere; it’s yellow and black closed sign registering a moment after. Dean slams on the brakes, feels the Impala slide, tires frictionless for a moment—

And then he’s flying, slow tipping of the Impala as it spins side over side, graceful and suspended for a moment, world upside down through the windshield.

No, he thinks, pure clarity of the word filling him blood to bone to limbs. No. Not when he’s this close.

Rushing mouth of darkness yawning to swallow him, silence filling the moment as he floats, waiting for the crash. 

Swish-swipe. Tick-tock.

Screech of metal against asphalt, sparks flying bright orange, white at the center so bright that he has to close his eyes, hands still trying to steer. The crush of metal folding all around him, closing in against his head, face flying to strike the dashboard, shattering of glass, and _slide_.

Sound like a coin drawn across a taut piano string, and he doesn’t know how he knows the sound, but he does. Car screaming like a blade against bone, bouncing and spinning, and then there’s nothing but the sleek, slippery surface of snow, cheek careening into the steering wheel, world contracting around him.

*

The first thing he’s aware of are the barest threads of guitar, sound warped and warbling as he claws his way up from darkness.

His brain stabs at the link to reality, clutching for purchase. Seconds, it’s only been seconds, maybe a minute.

He tries to open his eyes, lashes fluttering uselessly against the thickness clinging to them like tar. It’s warm and sticky, viscous and clinging against his fingertips as he rubs, forcing the seal apart.

Thin, salty burn of something liquid rolling into his right eye as he blinks awake, and he doesn’t understand for a moment, dazed and pained by the sudden brightness of the world, eyes nearly closing in protest.

It takes him a moment to work out that the headlights of the Impala are shining into a snow bank, reflecting back sharp, glittering crystals. That he’s upside down against the roof of the car, shoulders bent at an awkward angle against the metal surface that’s far closer to him than it should be.

His fingertips are stained red, and when he rubs at his eyes again, they come back crimson.

He’s staring at the side of the one lane bridge, snow drift piled up against it, eating away at the foundation until it founders halfway up the side, pure white giving way to ancient-looking, pocked concrete. Beyond, at the edge of the left headlight, black water spins, rushing and roiling, tufts of white foam rising like wounds where it strikes the rocks.

Wounds.

In the pale green glow of the dashboard light, he looks at the red mess of his fingers again, transfixed.

There’s no pain yet, and it occurs to him like an epiphany that he should get the fuck out of the car now, while he still can.

He reaches for the back seat, fumbling blindly for a moment until they land on the canvas of his backpack. The driver’s side window is shattered, shape of it compressed into a skinny rectangle. He plucks the few jagged, glass teeth that linger around the edges and then wriggles through, hips catching for one quick, panicky instant before he digs his fingers into the earth beneath the snow, pulling free.

He lies there for a moment, feeling the cold sink its teeth into him, wetness slowly seeping through his clothing.

He doesn’t feel like anything’s broken or sliced beyond repair, but he won’t know for sure until he stops long enough to check.

 _Sam_ , he thinks, pushing up from the ground.

His head doesn’t care about his gritted teeth, doesn’t give a fuck about his determination as he pulls himself to his feet, hands clutching the underside of the Impala for balance. His head spins like a top, giddy and wild, and his feet slip against angled snow, fingertips sunk into the metal innards of his car the only thing holding him to the world.

_Baby. I’m sorry._

Sam’s waiting for him. Sam needs him. He’s close now. Close to the place where Sam disappeared. He can walk the rest of the way.

Dean flexes his hands against the shape of the Impala, using her to hold himself up as he staggers up the sloping embankment. He has to crawl the last few yards, hands and feet pushing him the rest of the way.

It’s not until he’s standing, leaning against the edge of the bridge that he realizes he should have taken the keys. But hell, this far out in the middle of nowhere, it’s not likely anyone will even notice.

They’ll come back for her.

From below the bridge, he can hear the faintest sound of music still playing, words rising on the air, surreal against the frosty night.

Dean hesitates, foot on the verge of crossing over the seam, and then steps forward.

* * *

II.

His boots crunch against the snow as he walks, bridge fading into the mist of fog behind him. Pain throbs in his left front temple, blood trickling down his face, warm for an instant before the cold catches it, freezing it painfully tight against his skin. There’s a duller ache in his cheek and chest, and his elbow hurts like a bitch.

He can feel the frantic flutter of his heart; still feel the clock ticking down inside his head. Snow falls down through the night, flakes drifting gently under the wan light of a crescent moon. Clouds swirl in looping whorls down to the edge of the pines before him, world wrapped in a blanket of silence so thick that it’s almost tangible. 

No rustling branches, no telltale snap of twigs from within the trees. The sound of his own breathing seems muffled, his footfalls echoless. The oddness of it sinks in slowly, until he stops, listening.

Nothing. 

He slips his backpack off his shoulders and lets it slide down one arm, other hand opening it and reaching inside. He straps the thigh holster on and then slides the Glock into it, tucking the Colt into the back of his pants. 

He doesn’t know if he’ll need it, but he feels better with its weight there, resting snug and solid against the base of his spine.

Dammit. He needs to move faster than this.

He crests the ridge of pines, nothing but trees spanning out left and right from the narrow dirt road covered in snow. But in front of him… at the bottom of the hill… 

It’s a town. 

Dean blinks once, twice, a single snowflake catching in his lashes for an instant before it melts, trickling into his eye.

A town abandoned so long ago that it’s been forgotten.

Ramshackle buildings rise up from the ground, jutting at odd angles like crooked teeth. Dilapidated, forgotten; paint peeling away like skin, bare, weathered wood revealed like bone. Snow cascades at the edges, trickling to nothingness where the flatness of land begins, drawing back as if not quite daring to touch it.

Memory flickers like a candle flame. Image of Castiel’s face clear for an instant.

_“There’s no way of knowing what’s in there, Dean.”_

_“Sam’s in there.”_

Dean can feel the heat as he nears level ground, radiating from the earth itself. It sinks into his boots, snaking up through his calves, settling into his thighs as he walks on the concrete road between the buildings. It might be natural; it might not. He doesn’t care. He’s dealt with haunted towns before.

Though, those have always been as cold as the dead that refused to leave them.

The warmth spreads through his body as he walks, suffusing, wounds throbbing, pulsing with trickles of blood. His head feels impossibly heavy, vision growing dim.

No. He doesn’t want to stop. He’s close.

But he’s hurt. It won’t do either of them any good if he passes out before he can get to Sam. He has to pull himself together. Take care of his wounds. 

He sucks in a breath, pausing before one of the slanted buildings that might have been a house once. It sits at an awkward angle, door canting to the left, porch sloping toward the ground like a melted birthday candle. But the rest of it looks solid.

The step creaks dangerously beneath his heel, but holds, porch not protesting at all. The knob groans as he turns it, and for a moment, he doesn’t think it will give, pushing his weight behind it.

It falls away, collapsing inward, rusted hinges giving out; so much crashing wood and dust, and he nearly falls with it, stumbling backward at the last second. He glances around, ready to spring away, expecting the whole thing to come down like a house of cards. 

It doesn’t.

It’s dark beyond the open, tilted rectangle, an empty mouth billowing dust. Dean wishes like hell he’d brought a lantern, but the flashlight will have to do.

It’s a stark beam slicing through the darkness, revealing slivers of the room at a time. Couch, coffee table, television, sewing table, chairs, cocooned in cobwebs so thick he can just make out the shapes. The floorboards seem solid, if slanted, and Dean steps inside.

He takes the door to the right first, finding only a cobweb laden old-fashioned kitchen, pot-bellied stove squatting like a strange demon against a brick rise. Fifteen minutes ago, he’d have been tearing away the cobwebs and starting a fire with the tinder from the living room furniture. He’s plenty warm now, so warm that he’s sweating inside his jacket.

Nothing left except the hallway.

The angle of the floor is like a carnival funhouse, luring him slowly along, doors kicked inward, beam of light inspecting every corner; revealing nothing but rotting beds and wooden furniture. Behind the final door, he finds the same scene, flashlight pausing over the shape of an antique lantern, glass shimmering faintly.

He reaches for the light switch on a whim, plastic dry and crumbly against his skin.

The lights turn on obediently, sudden illumination sending a ripple of surprise through him. The room is bright now, every corner revealed, nothing left to shadow. A town abandoned this long shouldn’t still… 

His eyes scan the room, taking in the rotting comforter on the bed. It’s buried beneath layers of dust and spider webs, but he can see the pattern and colors are definitely 1970’s; paint on the walls a sick shade of green that he’s seen in too many motel rooms. 

He needs to hurry.

He moves to the tall dresser, shoving its solid weight in front of the door. It won’t help him much against anything dead, but if there’s anything still alive down here, it’ll buy him time.

He fairly collapses on the bed, head spinning for a moment before his hand snaps out, grabbing the corner of the four post bed. Nails digging into wood, and he yanks himself up, throwing his jacket off. He swipes away the dust and grime from the mirror with the cover from the bed and forces himself through cleaning his wounds with a clean shirt from his bag. The slice in his forehead looks deep, and he wraps bandages around the width of his skull, wincing with pain each time he comes close to touching it.

The rest of his injuries are small cuts and large bruises. He can live with those.

He leans close to the mirror, shining the flashlight into his own eyes, watching carefully. He sighs, clicking it off, and leans against the dresser, fists meeting its surface evenly, one still curled around the flashlight. 

It’s not the worst concussion he’s ever had. 

There’s the faintest movement in his peripheral vision, and he stands straight, turning toward it.

A single fleck of paint hangs precariously from the dilapidated walls, feathering vaguely up and down in a breeze he doesn’t feel. Eyes narrowing, he moves from the dresser, walking closer. As he watches, it detaches from the wall, falling like the snow he’d walked through earlier. It drifts in a slow, zig-zag motion through the air, his fingers reaching out to catch it. It brushes against his fingertips, settling with a light, itchy feeling against his skin.

He flicks it away, watching it rise through the air—and sees another fleck of paint curl from the wall, lilting through the air. It dances for a moment, indecisive, and Dean lifts his hand, fingertip touching the space it left behind.

Spider web thin cracks run beneath the surface from the point of his finger, paint crackling like brittle ice. 

Dean yanks his hand back, knowing it’s already too late. He can hear the splintering of paint all around him, cracks circling the room. This whole place is going to come down around his ears.

Panic setting in, desk to his left—he has to get under—

Fluttering of eyelashes, a single blink, and all he sees is peeling paint, the same as it was before he touched the wall. 

Shocked into stillness, it takes a moment to sink in, and he tilts his head left, then right, listening. 

Nothing. Silence.

Maybe his concussion is worse than he thought. If he’s hallucinating…

He pushes the thought from his mind and starts packing up his things.

He doesn’t have time to rest either way.

* * *

III.

He follows the main road deeper into town. Around him, every single building is blackened and charred, wood scabrous, cracked and scaly like alligator skin. Popped paint bubbles cover the surface like pockmarks, sickly remnants of barnacles still clinging. Some of them still swell in places; clumps of boils lumped together like over-ripened fruit, skin hardened, color lost to time.

The moon doesn’t help much, flashlight like a beacon against the darkness, hesitating over each joint where the main street meets another.

_Sam. Where are you?_

Sweat stands out against his skin, dripping to form rivulets down his spine, the line between his stomach muscles, t-shirt slowly soaking through. He swings the flashlight beam down another alleyway—

There—sudden movement, shadow thrown wild against the first brick wall Dean’s seen so far.

“Sam?” he calls.

The heels of his boots are silent against the concrete, carrying him closer to the alley. Swing of the beam down the length, finding it empty. Disintegrating trash and black mold paint the skinny passage, a row of metal doors lining it like soldiers.

One of them hangs open, a gaping mouth against the brick. 

The blood-red paint on the outside of the door is flecking off, falling away in waves, revealing dull gray beneath. Etched into what remains, he can make out the word ‘Club’ and the letter ‘H’. The rest has fallen away.

Dean makes his way to it slowly, fingers feeling out the light switch even as he scans the room with the flashlight. Old fluorescents hitch and fire to life, bathing the room in cold, blue light.

It’s a tiny space; four gray cinderblock walls with a table shoved against one side, chair set behind it. Cobwebs run in thick veins, devouring the unremarkable furniture. 

Dean would recognize it even without the name etched on the door. This is the back door to a club. All that’s missing is the muscle-bound guy behind the table, taking in money and ignoring fake ID’s.

Through the open doorway in front of him, there’s nothing, flashlight revealing tile and open space. Dance floor, he thinks, moving forward. To the left of the doorway, there’s a sign, words printed on paper in computer-perfect letters.

_Do you know where you are?_

It strikes Dean as an odd question to post in a place like this.

Boot scuffing against something as he starts to step through the doorway, and he pauses. There’s another sheet of paper lying on the floor, partially obscured by dust, corners crinkled and yellowing. Words are printed on this one, too, continuation of the line still taped to the wall.

_You’re in the jungle, baby._

Dean’s been listening to rock and roll all his life; he knows the next line. He doesn’t need to look around for it. He knows it’s here.

Abruptly, the piece of paper curls up into itself like a dead spider, sending Dean flying back a step. It blackens and crumbles to dust, time on fast forward, so quick he barely has time to register it. Decay spreads from it, rippling over a pond of dust and dirt and the room flickers like a bad frame in a film, tattered paint disintegrating as it peels from the walls. Rot eats away at the wall itself like quicksilver, dissolving until there’s nothing but the bare bones of wooden slats.

Jesus.

Dean takes another step back, hands shaking, his shoulder meeting solid weight.

“Dean,” someone breathes into his ear.

Chills spill down his spine, entire body erupting in goose flesh. His nostrils are clogged with the overpowering scent of rancid, rotten flesh, gorge rising to his mouth. Behind him. Whatever it is, it’s right behind him and it’s dead as fuck, breathing into his ear like it _knows_ him. 

“We’re so glad you’re here.” Dean can feel fetid breath hit him, slithering into his brain. 

His hands tighten around the gun, spinning around and bringing it up—

There’s nothing there. The room is just a room, gray paint clinging tenaciously to plaster, cobwebs choking the corners.

Concussion or not, he did not just imagine that shit. Last time he checked, he didn’t hallucinate in smell-o-vision.

“Nice parlor tricks, asshole.” His voice isn’t as steady as he wants it to be; lacks the conviction he wishes it did.

He keeps the gun up, turning in a slow circle. Flash of movement to his right, and he spins, finger twitching against the trigger.

“Sam?” he demands, voice cracking against the silence. He hopes like hell it’s Sam with an edge of desperation that borders on needy, followed by an afterthought of how he’s seen a lot shit in his lifetime, but this place is starting to hit his last nerve.

The open doorway in front of him is a dark rectangle cut into gray cinderblock. Sweat rolls down from his hair into his eyes, lashes blinking the sting away. The gun handle is slippery between his palms, squeezing, holding, waiting in the emptiness of silence.

No answer. No movement.

_“There’s no way of knowing what’s in there, Dean.”_

It could be Sam. If this place has been screwing with Sam’s head like it has Dean’s… who knows what Sam might be seeing right now?

He has to go in there.

He swings the flashlight in a wide, all-encompassing circle before he steps through the doorway. There’s a power switch just to his right, fingertips flexing as they leave the gun, settling against it.

“Let’s see what you’ve got,” he whispers, unsure who he’s speaking to as his fingers flip the switch on.

Colors flare to life, swirling, warping spotlights in blue, red and green, sound of music spinning up as if in slow motion. 

_I think it's so groovy now_  
That people are finally getting together  
I thinks it's wonderful and how  
That people are finally getting together 

Voice tinny, warbling, hollow and far away, like listening through water. He feels like he’s drowning in it, diamonds of colored light dazzling him, world winding into a spin, a wildly painted carousel filled with shapes of ghostly people. The room crackles with static as they materialize, growing solid as they turn on the dance floor, their features hidden by masks, animal and demon faces, feral and snarling with bared teeth.

_“I think it's so groovy now_  
That people are finally getting together  
I thinks it's wonderful and how  
That people are finally getting together” 

Looping color and sound--it’s all spinning, circling around him while he stands still, faster and faster. The tink of glasses carries across the haunting, garbled music, wild laughter rising in a wave as they dance.

_“Reach out in the darkness”_

Heavy. The world feels incredibly heavy, crushing in on him. Sweat pours down his body, skin baking in the heat of the room. Thick buzzing in his brain, angry sound of electric clippers, gritty and dirty, and it feels…

_“Reach out in the darkness”_

This isn’t… he can’t…

_“Reach out in the darkness”_

His hand fumbles for the switch, knees giving out, crashing to the floor as he yanks it down.

The room plunges into blackness, silent except for the sound of his breathing. The flashlight beam cuts at an angle away from his face, smoothness of light interrupted by grime caked on the tiled floor.

His brain whirls like a tornado, twisting and pitching wildly inside his skull. Hand reaching out, slapping against the floor like a man struggling for the shore, fingernails digging into thin dirt as he pushes up. 

It takes a long moment for his mind to orient itself, to slow and understand that he’s sitting here in the dark in some empty, rotting club in the middle of nowhere. Wet sheath of sweat clinging to him, skin cooling slowly, his hand is shaking as he reaches for the flashlight.

Slow push to his feet, head throbbing, knees weak. The burning heat, the buzzing, the way his head had spun. He’s never felt anything like that before. Whatever’s here, it’s powerful. More powerful than anything he’s ever—

No. He did not just see that. That did not just happen. That many ghosts in one place just… isn’t possible. A haunting on that scale doesn’t exist. The Morton House _is_ the hunter’s Grand Canyon—the most ghosts packed into one place on earth. If there was anywhere worse, he’d have heard about it, and stayed far the hell away.

_Unless this is one of those places you’ve never heard of because no one ever made it out alive._

A cold wave runs down the curve of his spine, leaving splinters of ice. He swallows hard, throat dry, clicking in the silence.

Screw it. If no one else has ever made it out of here alive, he and Sam will be the first.

“We’re gonna walk out of here,” he whispers, voice raspy against stillness. “You hear me, you motherfuckers?” 

The quiet stretches like a thin cord on the verge of snapping.

Nothing answers him, and he backs slowly on his heels to the door, satisfaction rising up in his chest.

Halfway there, something strikes his hand, wet plop spattering in the web between his thumb and forefinger. Flashlight brought to bear, almost spotting it when he feels it _wriggle_.

He smacks it away instinctively, shaking out his hand, shining light against the spot. 

Blind, white maggots fall like rain, writhing as they hit skin.

Dean shudders, throwing them off, backing up, flashlight beam stuttering as it hits the ceiling.

The corpse above him is a blackened husk, seared and melted into plaster, oily smears feathering out from it, inked into white paint like sickness. She’s been there a long time; mouth frozen open in a silent scream, empty eye sockets fixed on his face, strands of long hair melted into the flesh that remains on her cheeks.

Above and around her, black, distorted letters are burned into the ceiling.

_Welcome Home Dean_

His mouth works silently, mind completely blank for a few blissful seconds before the words hit him full force in the gut. His skin crawls against his skull, chill sinking into his bones, nerve endings flickering, flashing with sudden adrenaline.

Across the room, something moves, shuffling on slow feet. 

Flashlight and gun fall in tandem on instinct, pinpointing the source of the movement, muzzle of the gun flashing as he fires; sound deafening.

Over the perfect bullet hole in the wall, letters drip, running the color of fresh blood. 

_We Missed You_

Dean stares at them for a long moment, their power working inside his brain. Diving down deep to the places he drinks to forget about. Fear flutters, winged shadow through his stomach, echoing in the pulse in his throat. They know his name. Somehow, that’s the worst of all. Limbs frozen in place, circle of light shaking as it dances over bloody words, and he can’t remember the last time he was this afraid.

The room begins to spin again, slow whirl and distant buzzing, and Dean lets his eyes fall shut, squeezing out the sound.

No.

Fuck this. He knows this music. This is the song of the truly fucked. He’s not about to dance to it. He needs to get out of here.

He backs away slowly, retreating through the doorway he came through, gun and flashlight cutting a constant circle through the darkness.

Resolve breaks as his feet touch asphalt, turning and running from the doorway.

* * *

IV.

His footfalls slow between slanted brick buildings, tops falling toward each other as if to kiss. Skin fairly baking, sweat dripping from him in waves, heart an uncontrollable rhythm in his chest, and he has no idea where he is, how far in he’s come.

It seems hotter here, closer to the center, wound throbbing pain through his brow, stinging with sweat. His stomach turns over once, queasy with heat and exertion before it settles.

This is bad. Bad, bad, bad.

_\--Welcome Home Dean--_

No. He doesn’t want to think about that. Fuck this town. If he didn’t know Sam was here he’d burn it to the ground in a fucking second.

_Burn it the rest of the way to the ground, you mean_

Focus. Sam.

Damnable heat; sweat trickles down his forehead, filling his eyes with the sting of salt, distracting him.

He shrugs from his backpack, letting it slide to the ground, and tugs his t-shirt over his head, faint wince as it scrapes the bandage. He wipes his face with it and then he tears a long strip free, winding it around his head, fingers tying it into a knot. It’s grimy, still damp even after wringing it out, but it’ll keep his eyes clear. He settles the backpack against bare skin, weight centering between his shoulder blades, jeans slung low around his hips.

Lungs expanding, contracting, quiet creeping in around him, the buildings crowding closer. Burnt out husks, blackened shells, and he can almost imagine them breathing in synch. The air clings to his skin, wet and thick, fog rising in languid swirls from the asphalt, tendrils snaking around his ankles. It climbs quickly, hanging in heavy sheets upon the humid air, obscuring shapes, leaving faint shadows and bare impressions beyond.

He’s struck by the urge to go back the way he came, retreat from the fog. It feels wrong, clinging to his skin, the caress of warm, sweaty fingers clutching. Reminds him too much of rotting decay, that voice…

_“Hello, Dean.”_

He turns, fog scattering around him, whirlpool spinning before it dissipates. Which way did he come in? Moonlight filters down through the shroud, but he can’t see the moon’s face, nothing to provide direction.

His fingers run over the pounding in his forehead, skirting the edges of the makeshift bandage. It’s still night time. How long has he been here? The words echo in his brain for a moment with no answer. He doesn’t know. He lost his watch in the wreck, but it doesn’t matter. He’s a hunter; he’s learned to keep the clock in his head instead of on his wrist, where it could get lost or broken—case in point. But there’s no sense of time passing here… he could have been here for five minutes or five months.

Fuck. He wants—no, _needs_ to get out of here. Thought like truth to the marrow of his bones, but he can’t leave.

He’s spent so much of his life being afraid—so scared that it barely registers anymore. Fear is something you learn to live with, you make it work for you, let it sharpen you; carry you through the hard parts. But this… silence… is unforgiving, unrelenting—disconcerting. Slow fall of his boot heels against blacktop, no answering set of his brother’s footfalls in the distance.

He’s alone.

_Where are you, Sam?_

Something shuffles, suddenly and to his left.

Not alone then, but his bets aren’t on it being Sam this time.

He spins in the fog, gun and instinct his compass. Sound echoing off buildings and asphalt, reverberating through the street. He doesn’t have the tight acoustics of a room here, or an open area. The fog seems to play with the sound, reflecting it, moving it behind him, ending on his right. Hackles rise on the back of his neck, sweat sheathing his skin.

If he could just _see_ it.

Scrape of something dragging, the squelching thump of a step. Behind him now, body spinning to track. The world feels like a furnace, warping with heat, another sound behind him, the scuffle of something drawing closer from the front.

There are things all around him in the fog. He can _feel_ them there, drawing closer, circling him, tightening the noose. More things than he has bullets for, if bullets would even work. Flashlight revealing only swirls of gray mist, intangible and obscure.

“Back off.” His desperate snarl echoes in the fog, off the buildings, syllables reflecting strangely.

He can see them now, vague, misshapen forms slowly solidifying from the mist, silhouettes slanted and loping, jagged jerks and the pull of muscles all wrong. Mist wreathes around them like smoke as they amble toward him, circle closing tight, trapping him. Fear tightens in his belly, one more turn of a guitar string on the verge of snapping.

“I’m here for Sam, not you,” he growls. Last ditch effort, one final show of bravado, finger tightening on the trigger of a gun as useless as the flashlight in his other.

The things hesitate, rustling like dead leaves, and Dean calculates the space between two shadows, rushes the gap. Feet pounding against asphalt in time with the desperate thudding of his heart, and he can feel their hands reach to grab him, skin curdling like milk at the barest graze of ragged fingernails. Hurtling beyond them, praying the street holds out and he doesn’t go face-first into half-melted brick, he _runs_.

The fog grows thicker, scent rotten, the almost cloying sickly-sweet smell of death filling him, slow thunder rising behind him, an army of ungainly footsteps. His eyes are useless in the haze, and he’d bet money they don’t need theirs to find him.

Desperation brings a fresh wave of speed, feet flying over blacktop, boots barely touching ground, arms pumping, heart thrumming, and all he knows is he can’t die like this. Not now. Not yet.

“Tick-tock, Dean.” Words whispered into his ear, intimately close, dark chuckle burbling up from inhuman lungs.

He spins in motion, feet carrying him forward, gun flashing fire against the wall of fog. There’s nothing there, the zing of a bullet as it ricochets off brick in the distance, a crunch as it sinks into forgiving asphalt.

And still, from further behind him, the sound of thundering footsteps pursuing.

He runs until his lungs burn, calves screaming protest, a thin, red line dividing preservation and exertion. The fog begins to break, scattering in waves as he moves through it, hunkering shapes of buildings growing in the line of his vision.

Almost there. Almost there. He just needs to get to a building, get some protection and space in behind him, an area he can navigate and use to his benefit.

The last of the fog pulls from him like a lover’s hands, fighting to hold on, releasing only when he grunts, tears free with sheer force.

Sounds of pursuit fading; and still he runs.

Running until he falls inside an open doorway, panting harsh breaths, hands shoving the metal door into place behind him. He lies there, waiting, frantic pulse of heart and lungs, muscles melting like butter against hot concrete.

Light plays against his eyelids, flickering orange and gold, and he opens them.

Tall building, filled with crates—a warehouse, by the size and height.

It’s on fire. Graceful sweep and dance of flame as it devours.

_Frying pan, meet fire._

He’d laugh if he could.

This can't be real. None of this can be real.

He hauls to his feet, skin scorching, and pushes against the brick, letting it hold him for a moment. Ashes fall in bright embers, floating like fireflies on the air before they vanish. They drift and dance, tiny pinpricks of light weaving as the world begins to spin.

He doesn’t have a choice. He can’t stay here. He closes his eyes, gathers his strength. A turn and shove, metal almost too hot touch, and then he’s stumbling back through the door.

The street is empty, the fog lifted, stumps of melted buildings pooling on the sides of sticky asphalt.

Blood drips on the outside of the warehouse door, letters running and melting in the heat.

_Sam is dead_

The words sink in, pulling darkness down around his heart, stomach plummeting. His worst fear, spelled out in blood, so much worse than anything else.

The words sizzle and pop, metal beginning to give way to fire.

He thinks of another abandoned town, another frantic search for Sam. Remembers his brother slipping in cold mud, falling to his knees, Dean’s arms opening to catch him as he died.

God dammit. No. They’re lying. They have to be lying, because...

That won’t happen this time. Not after all they’ve been through. Both of them, literally to Hell and back to find each other again.

_Hell and back…_

The words strike a chord of memory, flaring to life—

In the distance, comes a muffled thump, meat striking blacktop, and then _skittering_.

He doesn’t even want to know. He knows it’s not Sam—sound of thousands of insect legs scrabbling over concrete—and that’s all that matters.

He half-stumbles down the street, away from the sound, boot heels sticking to sludgy asphalt.

* * *

V.

He doesn’t know how long he’s been wandering the maze of the city. It seems to go on forever, infinite and inescapable. He thinks of pines and snow and lifts his eyes sometimes to find them, but they’re never there, gone as if they’d never existed. He wonders if they ever did. If anything else ever existed except this place. This _now_.

Nothing here feels real. The melted, squatting buildings, the unbearable heat. The club, the things that chased him all seem like phantoms now, something from a faded nightmare.

Nightmare… could he be dreaming? The thought is almost a relief, muscles relaxing for an instant.

No, he can’t let himself relax. No dream ever felt like this. His whole body is nothing but an ache, orchestra of pain played through every nerve, vision dimming around blood trickling into his eye. He can see trails of dried sweat on his arms, grime and ash washed away, the fine scratches on the back of one hand.

This is real—

_Don’t lose your grip._

\--but he’s tired. So damned tired.

He has to keep going. Has to find Sam.

He could go for miles on sheer determination, but if he doesn’t rest, those… things will catch him, eventually.

He finds a house still mostly intact, charred wood tearing free from the doorway beneath his palm. Above, the moon still shines, and he wonders how, feels the world spin around where he stands, arm braced against the door.

His elbow nearly gives before he catches his weight, makes his way inside the shelter. Debris and remaining furniture go to reinforce the doors and windows before he falls into the embrace of the filthy mattress on the floor.

Maybe when he wakes, the sun will be up.

With that thought, his eyelids drift closed.

*

Castiel is waiting for him on the other side.

The angel stands in the open doorway of the house, back to Dean, staring out into the street. The wood is blackened and scaled, same strange angles as everything else here, and he looks small, somehow, framed by it.

“Cas?” Dean asks, pushing from the mattress, rising to his feet.

“It’s getting harder to track you.” Castiel’s low, gritty voice; familiar and welcomed. Relief courses through Dean, leaves him on the edge of falling over.

“Cas, I need your help.”

“I’m helping as much as I can.” Castiel turns, blue eyes piercing in the low light. Firelight glimmers beyond the doorway, limning and shadowing his form.

“I… barricaded that.” The memory is fresh, distinct.

“You’re dreaming.”

“You’re not really here.”

“No. Even being here like this is putting considerable strain on my power.” Dean can see the edges of Castiel’s form flicker, like static on an old television.

“This place is too powerful… for _you_?”

Orange light flickers over Castiel’s face as he nods. “I’m doing what I can… but Dean.” Castiel purses his lips, brows drawing together. “Don’t become lost here. If you do… I won’t be able to get you out.”

“What is this place? What happened here?”

Flames flicker, visible through the angel’s form, shape growing less distinct. “You’ll be safe here, for now. But you’re drifting. Don’t--”

Castiel flickers out of existence for a moment, cutting off the rest of his words before he half-solidifies again.

Dammit. “Cas, I didn’t hear--”

The edges of Castiel’s coat waver like smoke, beginning to dissipate. “Remember, Dean. Be careful.” Edge of desperation to the grit, words penetrating the fog of Dean’s dreaming mind.

“Okay,” he agrees. “But don’t--”

The angel vanishes into vapor, curls of steam dancing on the air for an instant before they’re gone.

“—leave.”

He stands there in silence for a moment, turning to scan the rest of the room. Empty.

“He shouldn’t have come here.”

The voice hits Dean hard, leaves him shaking. “Sam?”

No, not Sam. Sam can’t dreamwalk like Castiel can. This is all in Dean’s head now.

“You shouldn’t have come here, either.” Sam is crouched down by the doorway, close to where Castiel had appeared, back turned to Dean. Elbows pressed to knees, shoulders broad and so familiar that Dean almost forgets this is a dream. Wants to run and grab Sam, hug him, feel him.

“It’s dangerous.” Shift of Sam’s shoulders, an uneasy ripple.

“My mind?”

“No. _Here_.” Dean can feel what the word encompasses, lets it draw him along.

“Where are we?”

Sam pauses, shaking his head. “I don’t know. It feels familiar though, doesn’t it?”

The words hang there, burrowing into Dean’s mind, shiver running through him, a sudden need to see Sam’s face.

“Sam, look at me.” His brother doesn’t turn, and dread knots in Dean’s belly, growing.

Sam rolls the weight of something tiny in one hand, sound of glass clicking together. “Time’s running out.”

His feet carry him across the distance to his brother’s side, letting his knees give as he crouches beside Sam. A brush of fingers to move the curtain of Sam’s hair, nerves taut, stomach fluttering. It’s his brother’s face—Sam’s face. Tanned skin, sharp angles, and it feels like forever since he’s seen it. “What does that mean?”

Hazel eyes flicker to meet his, and Dean can see two marbles in Sam’s hand, a glint of light off tiger’s eye. One is burnished copper, the other swirling red like an angry planet, orbiting in an endless dance across his brother’s palm. “It means you need to wake up now.”

“Help me find you.”

His brother’s empty hand cups Dean’s jaw, pulling him close. Shift and merge, melt and run, and he feels...

“Wake up.” The words are a command, light press of lips to Dean’s brow and—

His body jerks against the mattress, eyes flashing open. Sitting up, he casts his gaze to the doorway, finding only wooden furniture in the low, electric light of the room. Sam had felt so real, lingering sense of warmth against Dean’s forehead, imagery clinging as sleep fades.

Sam’s still here. Still alive. He’s sure of it.

His head feels clearer than it has since it smashed into the windshield of the Impala. More centered, focused.

The likelihood of a place like this… a haunting on this scale… a town half-melted and still burning… with electricity that still works? It doesn’t track. None of it tracks.

The thin burn in his throat makes him wonder if it has running water, too. He’s finished off every water bottle he brought with him into this pit, trying to keep the heat from adding dehydration to his growing list of concerns, right after ‘dying’ and ‘going insane’.

The wooden floor of the kitchen sags in the middle, boards creaking, but holding his weight. The faucet emits a high-pitched shriek, sends him reeling back, grabbing for his gun before he realizes it’s given way, water pouring into the sink. He cups his hands beneath the flow, dips the point of his tongue between his palms. It smells clean, tastes clean. Doesn’t make the first bit of sense, but considering everything else that doesn’t make sense here, he’ll take it.

His face, his chest, every bit of him is smeared with soot, skin itching with a layer of dried salt from sweat. He uses the remains of his shirt to wash up as best he can, cleans his wound and redresses it, and when he’s done, water supply replenished, he almost feels… normal. Almost feels… _sane_.

_\--You’ll be safe here--_

He can… almost still feel Sam, lingering here. Did Cas do something to ward this place? He wishes like hell he had a map so he could mark the location. But he’s got to keep moving.

He packs up his things, moves the barricade from the door, and gives the house one last look before he steps into the street.

* * *

VI.

The light outside is a weak gray, the color of dirty dishwater, sky hidden by a barrier of clouds. Buildings line the street, smoking, huddled ruins, streamers of black rising like slashes against the gray.

The heat is still immense. He ponders stripping naked down to his boots, but the idea of fighting monsters with his family jewels hanging out is enough to keep him from doing it. Jeans and boots will have to do.

He heads toward his best guess at the center of town, moving in a tightening loop through the streets.

They open up wide as he closes in. City blocks, larger buildings crumbling here, burnt out hotels and businesses. Something moves beyond the gaping window of a laundry mat, flickering of shadow within shadow, and he stills, muscles coiling. Minutes pass, eyes wandering to the building across the street; husk of a movie theater, bits of letters still clinging to the dangling billboard.

It takes a moment, filling in missing letters and fragments. _The Great Escape_.

Gun lowering, he walks closer, boots crunching debris into asphalt, coming away tacky.

It’s an old-fashioned theater, glass ticket booth front and center. Shattered fragments of glass still gleam at the corners, everything inside the booth charred beyond recognition. The ticket dispenser is twisted, cleaved down the center, butter parted with a hot knife. But there’s… something. A yellowed corner of paper, angled awkwardly through one of the slits.

Twin doorways open like yawning mouths on either side of the booth, depths hidden in shadow. One more step, beyond the shallow overhang, the light will leave him.

 _The Great Escape_. Dean remembers all the times he’s watched it with Sam, bodies side by side on rough motel sheets, popcorn or pizza--sometimes both--shared between, nudging elbows, exchanging grins, reciting each line. They’ve used it to communicate in code more times than Dean can count.

It can’t be coincidence. Whatever’s here… has to know what it means to him. That can’t be good.

His thumb slides over the handle of the Glock, tracing faint patterns etched there, indecisive.

Screw it.

He steps into shadow, fingers of his free hand teasing the edge of stubborn paper, easing it free. Ears pricking for the slightest sound, metal gear turning, ticket tugged loose.

The printing is concise, neat computerized letters.

_Admit One_

Fuck. This has to be a trap.

But what if Sam’s in there?

Gun cocking, flashlight pulled from the side pocket of his back pack.

He’s got a ticket. Monsters and asshats will just have to recognize.

He laughs out loud at the thought, and it’s a reedy sound, too high and thin, trembling on the verge of madness. He wants out of here so goddamned badly, his skin crawling at the thought of stepping inside.

The doorway slants sideways, dim light from the street revealing industrial gray carpeting littered with trash; empty popcorn bags, crushed drink cups, napkins… black… melted bits and pieces he doesn’t want to investigate too closely. Fragments of white, human bone, scent of rotting filth rising.

The flashlight flickers and dies after a few steps. He curses it, wishing he’d brought batteries, taking a moment to reconsider. If there was anywhere in this town Sam would be, it would be here. He can’t walk away without knowing.

Inside, faint light filters in through cracks and broken windows, illuminating the room in patches. So much of it lost to shadow—there could be anything there, lurking just out of sight. He takes shallow breaths, ears straining every step to catch any hint of sound.

Past the cracked, melted serving counters is a door marked “Projector Room: Employees Only”. He stares at the words, waiting for something to happen, for them to wriggle, reform, but they don’t.

Stench rolls out from behind the door, nearly doubling him over as he opens it. There’s a narrow staircase beyond it, rising up into darkness. The room at the top will be closed up tight, no windows. Pitch black until he fumbles out the light switch if there’s no one up there.

That’s where Sam will be, if he’s here. In a small space, only one entry point, easily defensible.

Darkness, complete and all consuming, stretched out in front of him.

He could call out for Sam. He could… if he wanted to catch the attention of something else.

_Like they don’t already know you’re here._

He has to go in there. There’s no question, no matter how much he doesn’t want to.

Unease growing in his belly, he takes the first step up.

The door slams shut behind him, a loud, hollow boom that nearly sends him running. He stands there in complete darkness, made of will and steel, sweating out, listening. The stair creaks beneath his weight, nothing else. No sound, but he can _feel_ something in here with him. Stifling heat, faint flutter like wings, spider webs trailing over skin, each step up the stairs punctuated by a pause, nerves straining on the edge of breaking.

The air is heavy, thick, oppressive sticky-warm against his skin, sweat trickling down his spine, dripping from his face, weight of something ancient pressing in, light fingers over him, tracing lines, caressing him. Fear locked away behind the closing of his throat, screams shuttered away. He won’t give them the satisfaction. Sons a bitches can choke before he’ll break.

Unless… unless there’s something worse on the other side of the door.

He isn’t sure where the thought comes from, feet stopping still upon the stairs. 

It’s not like they’re trying to stop him. Almost like they’re…

It doesn’t matter. He has to do this.

He reaches the top, hand skidding across the flat of the door until he finds the knob, smeared thick with something he’s glad he can’t see.

The smell is worse, closer to the projector room, weight of it hitting him solid as he opens the door.

“Jesus.”

The projector warbles to life, sound like a toy winding down in reverse, single eye of light dimly illuminating the room.

He steps back, motion surprising him—

A body is nailed to the ceiling, spread-eagle, gutted from throat to groin, ragged edges of rotting flesh flapping in the rising projector heat. Blood and entrails cover the projector beneath, long loops of intestine like reels of film, festering and rotting.

Catching hold of his stomach, hand covering his mouth, he wonders if this is what this place wanted to show him.

A flash of gold catches light, dangling from the corpse on the ceiling. Some kind of necklace…

Recognition turns to horror as realization sinks into him, icy claws crushing his heart. 

The amulet. _His_ amulet.

Sam. Oh… God. It’s Sam.

The world goes numb, knees hitting the floor.

No. No no no no no. It isn’t real. Can’t be real.

Sam's eyes are wide open, flat stare aimed at nothing, two black pearls without shine. Skin, mottled with decay, dark spots dotting the curve of one cheekbone, lips blackened, mouth open in a soundless scream.

He’s too late.

“Dean.” Word hissed possessively, brush of bony fingers against the curve of his skull.

Shivers course through him, barely felt through the wall of his grief.

“Your brother tasted sweet,” cold lash of tongue caressing the shell of his ear. “Just like you will.” Sputtering purr like a dying engine, icy teeth sinking into flesh. “Martyrs always taste sweetest.”

Fear and revulsion coil, mingling with rage, denial hitting last.

“Fuck. You.” Dean whispers, succinctly, turning, muzzle of the gun fired into empty space.

He closes his eyes tight, breathes deep. Image of Sam painted on the inside of his eyes, and it won’t leave him.

“It isn’t real,” he whispers, cheeks wet with sweat and tears. His worst fear, made flesh, dangled before his eyes. It’s what this place does… gets inside your head.

 _It isn’t real_.

He has to believe that, because if he doesn’t… if he doesn’t…

He’s fucked. Because this is all over, right here, right now. He’ll lay down his gun and invite the thing lurking in the darkness; bare his throat to it, welcome it home. He’d tried. He’d loved Lisa, loved Ben, but he didn’t belong in their world. He doesn’t belong anywhere, except—

It isn’t Sam. It can’t be, he thinks, sucking in a deep breath.

He turns, eyes snapping open. The body still hangs there, naked, rotting, gutted like a fish, and for a moment, his mind is confused, eyes trying to focus on the face, recognize it. Sam… and then _not_. So not Sam that he wonders how he ever could have mistaken it. Green flesh peels from white bones that don’t resemble Sam at all, cheekbones too low, nose too narrow, hairline too high.

Not Sam. Thank God.

Was it ever Sam’s face? Did he imagine it? Then why…?

The amulet still dangles from the body’s neck, lazy, pendulum swings back and forth. He can’t question why, how it came to be here. He just knows what he needs to do.

It’s _his_ amulet. And there’s no fucking way he’s leaving without it.

Barely a thought given, and then he’s climbing up, knees slipping in rotten innards, stench making his stomach convulse. Blank, empty eyes above him, rotting and receding, and he tries to ignore them, fingers reaching, winding through the cord, tugging until it snaps.

It’s not Sam strung from the ceiling. But did Sam leave this for him… or did _they_?

He falls more than climbs down, feet catching his weight before he steadies.

Sam wouldn’t have left this behind, no matter how sure he was that Dean would find it. He wouldn’t have risked it. Much as the thought hurts, it rings true.

Maybe they’re playing with him. Luring him on. Doesn’t matter, he thinks, feeling resolve strengthen with the bit of metal in his hand.

Amulet cupped in his palm, he leaves the room without a backward look.

* * *

VII.

Daylight is wan, bleak as he steps into the street. Covered in sweat, reeking of decay, and none of it matters except the bit of gold in his hand. He’s regretted the moment he threw it away almost since the instant he let it go. Always, there’d been hope that Sam had rescued it. Hope had faded, forgotten, abandoned over time.

To find it here… Those fucking _things_ put it there, wanted him to think Sam was dead. Had wanted to crush him, make him easy prey.

He slides the charm from the leather cord, rinses it with water. Another length of leather cord cut from the cinch on his backpack, fingers tying a slipknot, and then he draws it over his head, cord catching in his hair before the charm settles against the hollow of his throat.

The familiar weight is a comfort, back where it’s always belonged.

He hadn’t realized how much he’d missed it.

*

 

The fallout hits him later, long after he’s left the theater, emotional wreckage strung out like a car crash down a freeway.

Sam hanging there, ripped open and rotting like overripe fruit, and it doesn’t matter that it wasn’t real—it felt real, looked real, _smelled_ real. That moment of loss… of utter failure… things he’d hoped he’d never feel again.

He’s a hunter. He does what he has to do. He deals with corpses almost every day; brutal death, grisly bodies and terrifying monsters are staples in his life. Easier to joke about them than let them sink in. But nothing can prepare you for your brother dying in your arms, spine shifting, broken and all wrong while you hold him. For his body ripped open wide, insides spilled out all over the floor of a projection room. Not when you’re the one who’s supposed to protect him—save him.

Those images… those moments… are never leaving him, real or imagined. Neither is the fear that he might be too late next time—this time.

He stops, fingernails digging into palms, lancing pain that centers him. Stands there in the middle of the empty street, beneath the strange gray sky, head throbbing, body dripping sweat, reeking of death.

He needs… he needs to get cleaned up.

*

 

There’s a small house nearby, big enough for what he needs. Layers of dust and cobwebs cover every surface, scarcely noted except when brushed aside.

The water in the bathtub runs red, faucet screeching, coughing out flakes of rust. For a moment so much like blood that Dean’s startled—and then it coughs again, water flowing clear. Steam begins to rise, heat rippling, and he turns the cold knob harder. In the end, he has to turn off the hot water completely, rinsing beneath water that’s as warm as the air he lets his body dry off in.

Jeans a loss, he rinses his boots, chunks of gore and blood streaming away, clumps of innards clogging the drain before he turns the water off, throws the shower curtain shut. Clean underwear, jeans and socks pulled on against his already-sweating skin, and he feels… a little better. Boots bearing scratches and bite marks, leather scuffed and scraped, but they’re dry inside as he slides them on.

His feet clomp against the sloped, wooden floorboards as he walks to the living room. Dry dust and cobwebs, peeling wallpaper and rotting furniture, this house is the same as the others. 

Hand running through the still damp spikes of his hair, he turns. Growing concern number three needs fulfilling, half of his water bottles empty, needing to be filled.

Dying. Going insane. Dehydration. His list of growing concerns isn’t much different than any other time. It’s this place that’s different. 

_Or maybe it’s all in your head._

Fingers pressed gingerly against wound in his forehead.

_How much of it is all in your head, Dean?_

Maybe some of it. Maybe all of it. 

Maybe not a goddamned thing.

Dead, gray light, falling through the kitchen window, hands fisted against the kitchen sink. Amulet suspended in the space beneath his chin, glimmering dully over even duller stainless steel. 

They made a mistake. One hell of a goddamned mistake if they thought giving him this would turn him back.

_What if they don’t want you to turn back?_

He shakes his head against the thought, feels his brain spin, slip-sliding against the inside of his skull.

_What if they want you to go deeper?_

Even if they do…

 _What if we want you to stay forever, Dean?_ The whisper tickles at the back of his mind, teasing.

He’ll go as deep as it takes to find Sam.

 _Stay, Dean._ Leathery feel of dead skin against his mind—

His eyes snap open, surprised to realize they’d been closed.

Something…

Something is coming.

Light filters through the window above the sink, watery and thin.

It’s day time, he thinks, desperately, as if that should make a difference somehow.

Awkward footsteps inside the house, falling like the pattering of rain. It’s a strange sound, almost clumsy, fingers closing around his gun.

Then he sees them.

Tiny bodies like toddlers, charred beyond recognition. Cinders and gleaming bone, staggering on stubby legs, weaving drunkenly, eye sockets glowing like twin coals, flaring orange. Their teeth gnash, snapping, the crackling sounds in sharp succession, discordant symphony filling the room until it’s all Dean can hear. One squeals, high pitched whine that sounds like _want_ , vile ropes of saliva dripping from sharp teeth.

They’re… God. They’re _hungry_. The realization is distant, filled with horror he can’t process.

_We’re sorry, all circuits are busy, please try again later._

The thing breaks and runs, rushing, diving, teeth snapping as they close around Dean’s boot.

He kicks his foot out, snapping it hard left, barely noting the shriek of pain, the thump as the thing hits the wall. Steps taken backward, eating up precious space, knowing any moment his shoulders will meet the wall, nowhere left to run.

So many of them, and Christ, for all the times that he’s imagined how he might finally die for good, this scenario never figured in.

_No one ever expects deep-fried toddler cannibals._

The thought bubbles to the surface through a haze of shock, jagged, hysterical laughter tearing from his chest.

Shit. He is so fucked.

They surge in a mass of charred flesh and hungry teeth, and Dean hits the wall, sucks in a breath and levels his gun. Has time to wish he’d brought a flame-thrower.

They’re on him then, slavering, tiny mouths tearing at his jeans, teeth skidding off the thick leather of his boots. Only the calm of shock now, standing in the eye of the storm. He goes perfectly still, eyes locking down the barrel of his gun as he takes careful aim.

He’ll kill as many of them as he can, and when he’s down to his last bullet, he’ll press the cold muzzle between his lips, let the last flash take him.

 _I’m sorry, Sam,_ he thinks, and pulls the trigger.

They’re a churning sea of black bodies, teeth and claws shredding the legs of his jeans, scoring his boots. Too many of them and not enough bullets. One closes its teeth around the muzzle, gun torn from Dean’s hand.

“Add ‘being eaten alive’ to the list of concerns,” he mutters distantly, survival instinct clawing, pushing him off the wall to run. The weight of them clinging drags him to the ground before he’s taken a step, and they fall on him in a seething mass, gibbering, slashing each other in frenzy. He reaches for the small of his back, fingers closing around the handle of the Colt.

The ground rumbles, world shaking before it lists and turns. The creatures scatter from him, black droplets of water, screeching. He pushes to his feet, nearly falls again, room a whirl of sound, spinning around him. Everything feels… heavy, weight threatening to crush him to the ground, gust of heat hitting him like an inferno. From far away, he can hear the angry sound of buzzing.

The monsters howl, sound nearly deafening, stubby bodies writhing, crawling toward the door.

 _Scary things… scared. Not good._ The thought struggles through the mire of his brain, chain reaction, adrenaline rushing his veins.

The world is a spinning loop, leaving him still in the center, tilting, warping. Harsh buzzing fills his mind, chainsaw drawn along the lines of his nerves, louder, closer. Fuck, he can _feel_ something coming, hairs rising on the back of his neck, skin prickling, stomach pitching. Vision dimming, blackening at the edges, arms so heavy, leaden, and he can barely… barely…

Power pulls like a black hole, time slowing down, seconds stretching into hours, each staggering step earned by years. Sluggish, God, so slow, and he’s burning up, mind fraying beneath the relentless hissing drone.

On hands and knees, fingernails digging into wood, body pulled behind, and it’s coming, God, it’s coming right behind him, scorching breath against his back. The amulet swings into his line of vision, bit of gold beneath his chin.

_Sam_

For an instant, terror flees, shadows drawing back in his mind, leaving behind nothing but pure strength.

 _Sam,_ he thinks, focusing on the charm, the slight weight of the leather cord, pulling himself another arms length. Breathing down his neck now, bellows of Hell searing skin and he resists-- **pulls**.

Whipping sound of air spiraling, sucked away—

\--and then he’s lying on sagging hardwood, splinters dug beneath his fingernails, lungs panting shocked, raspy breaths. The world is completely silent, so silent after the rush of sound that the change almost hurts, ear drums flexing.

His heart beats a mad rhythm, lungs sucking breath, every nerve screaming, firing, pushing him to his feet. Hands shaking, he grabs the Glock, metal jittering against his thigh as his feet come up beneath him. His whole body thrums with electricity, ready to blow.

_Jesus fuck, what the fucking fuck **was** that?_

A shrill ring pierces the silence, startling Dean so badly that he nearly drops his gun.

It’s an ancient rotary phone, set on an old table in the corner, black metal gleaming like the carapace of a beetle.

Dean swallows hard, staring at it. Shrill buzzing fills the silence again, and he can feel the shivers twist down his spine, wrap around each other, knotting together in his stomach.

_Long distance call for you, Dean. **Looooong** distance._

It rings again, glow radiating, fierce red eating it up, two circles glowing like orange eyes. Plastic begins to run and melt, bottom splitting open, jagged plastic like teeth.

“Deannnnn.” The word trails into a long burbling screech of sound, cacophony of screaming voices straight from Hell.

No time for the message to travel from brain to hand—Dean pulls the trigger, bullet sinking into the metal guts of the phone, sparks flying from its innards. It collapses, oozing across the table, black, oily puddle, spilling onto the floor. It twitches, slithering like a snake.

He doesn’t wait to see what happens next; backpack snatched up, feet carrying him through the door.

* * *

VIII.

The day passes in utter silence, eerily stillness almost as bad as the sound of things pursuing him.

He stops in the open field of a playground. Metal twisted and warped, sagging shapes like the distended legs of a spider, monkey bars shattered against the ground like the broken spine of some strange, prehistoric creature. Nothing of comfort here but that he can see in every direction around him in the strange, flat daylight.

 _Dead light_ , he thinks, and shivers.

He should stop, eat something.

There’s enough dried, processed foods in his bag to keep him going a few more days.

He isn’t sure why he cares. It’s not like he needs to eat, here.

Castiel’s face shimmers at the edge of memory, pleading. Image like a cloud, rolling through his mind, wind shredding it to fragments as it passes.

 

*

So close to the center, heat unbearable, sweat spilling in waves. Hotter, the closer he gets, until the world feels like a fever dream, surface rippling, warping. The thirst is incredible, water bottles drained, his hands shaking them for another drop.

Head on fire, lightning striking brow to brain, and all he knows is that he has to keep going.

Tick-tock. Tick-tock.

Mist begins to rise, rolling across the ground, winding around his ankles. Blessed wetness rising through the air, and he doesn’t mind how it sticks, clings to him. Distantly, he notices the sky is darkening, on the verge of night, sound of… _something_ rousing in the distance.

It doesn’t matter… whatever it is. Nothing here is real, anyway.

_\--Don’t become lost here--_

Castiel’s voice is a vague memory, glancing off the heat of his mind.

Mist twines around him, caressing, sweet and gloriously wet, encircling his legs, winding around his chest. Pull like a siren’s call and he slows, stops, lets it envelop him. It feels like heaven, moisture beading on his lips, winding around him, pulling him closer, tighter.

“So beautiful…” it croons, voice like rainstorms, a thousand whispers shuddering in his mind. “Such a good boy. _Our_ boy.”

Flexing pull and tug, embrace squeezing breath from his lungs. Tipping, on the edge of falling over, words weaving sweetness and comfort inside him. So easy to want to give in, soothing hands moving all over him.

“ _Our_ boy,” words intoned with reverence. “You belong with us, Dean.”

Belong. The word echoes hollowly down the corridors of his mind, clicking into place. Living mist surrounds him, pulling at him, seducing him, and it’s one, single word that calls him front and center. The world slides into sharp focus, crashing through the fog of his mind.

Sudden twist and turn, throwing his body away from its grip, ground rushing up hard to meet him. Asphalt, impact. Shuddering of his shoulder, glancing blow against his temple, sparks exploding in a shower behind his eyes. Reality wavers, on the verge of blinking out, and then he’s on his feet, running.

There’s a house, door still intact, and he rushes through it, shouldering his way, bruised muscles screaming pain. Door slammed shut behind him, couch moved in seconds to barricade it, and it’s not enough. They don’t need a door; they don’t need anything to get inside this space, inside his head.

He crouches on the floor, gun in one hand, amulet in the other.

Everything is silent except the sound of his breath, pounding heartbeat.

After a few minutes, he stands, swaying, room a swirling carousel, catching slowly.

Sun fading, sinking beyond the horizon, last deep bit of light caught inside the house, illuminating just enough.

The fireplace stones slump sideways, picture hanging at a precarious angle above. He steps closer, eyes narrowing on painted faces. The colors are washed out, shades of rich brown to light tan, four faces staring back at him. Woman, man, little boy in front of them, baby held against the mother’s hip, like a million other family portraits Dean’s seen in other people’s houses.

Except none of them are smiling. Expressions strangely somber, eyes haunted.

There’s a book, thick tome splayed wide against wood, pages yellowed and crisped at the edges, filled with thin, spidery script beneath years of dust and ash.

Dean is drawn to it in a way he doesn’t understand, caught between film frames, somewhere outside his mind.

He walks to the desk, finger tracing a line through the dust.

_This little piggy went to hell, this little piggy stayed home,_

He blinks, mind turning over the words, forehead throbbing distantly, finger tracing another line.

_this little piggy ate his mother, this little piggy died alone,_

Sweat standing out on skin, thick, feverish swirl inside his mind, hand swiping away the rest of the obscuration.

_and this little piggy screamed reet reet reet until the wolf chewed through his bones._

There’s a wolf depicted below the words, misbegotten and twisted, monstrous. Its face is a mass of scaly plates that surround its bulbous, wolf-like face, peeling apart, revealing jaundiced yellow eyes and teeth… so many teeth that its mouth shouldn’t be able to hold them all, each silver, sharp as a needle. It slavers, foam flecked in its scaled muzzle, rent flesh caught between shiny points. Lips shredded to ribbons, gums and teeth stained violent red, its mouth _moves_ , callous yellow eyes looking out from the page.

“Let me in, Dean.”

Growling, terrible roll of words that tremble in the air as it begins to move, malformed hind legs pushing, muzzle cresting paper, black, shiny tip of its nose emerging, sniffing, testing the air.

_Little pig, little pig, let me in._

From somewhere far away, the sound of buzzing, crackling static, monstrous teeth eating up the space between, closer and closer.

No.

His hands shut the book, dust rising in plumes from the desk. Fingers trembling, heart thundering, book expanding, pushing open from the center, hiss and snarl. He can smell the thing’s breath, heavy scent of carrion, rotten and sickly sweet.

Gun pushed against the leather cover, trigger pulled, smoking ruin of shredded paper exploding, fragments raining down, faded yellow, crisped black at the edges. 

God. Fuck. He has to get _out of here_.

Hand fumbling for the light switch, desperate crawl across the wall, lamps flickering on.

The painting has changed. Their faces… mouths open, expressions frozen in horror, eyes wide as they stare at something beyond Dean.

He spins, gun pointing out, hand shaking as it aims at nothing down the darkened hallway to the bathroom. Body turning back, gun following the circle—

The painting is empty, sea of dark brown dripping over the edges of a rotted wood frame.

Something in the peeling wallpaper _moves_ , ripple of leaf edges running together and reforming. 

There are faces in it. Thousands of them trapped in the design, mouths open, screaming silently.

Rustling echoes from the bathroom, sound of something clumsy moving against thin plastic.

He turns slowly, caught as if in a dream.

Silhouette behind the opaque shower curtain, hands dragging crimson across its surface like paint, nose and mouth pushed against plastic, smearing blood behind. Face jerking, listing to one side, then the other.

“Missed you… Dean.” Bloody lips move against the shower curtain, voice slow and guttering and _dead_. Hands paint plastic red, clawed fingers pushing through, beckoning invitation. 

He knows, somehow, she’s the woman from the painting, the way someone knows a thing resolutely, to the bone, in dreams.

 _Dreams_. His mind drifts from the haze of horror into the peace of that thought. He’s dreaming.

The room is starting to melt; running faces caught screaming within it, dripping, sagging like wax.

He could… he could just…

“You belong with us.” Caress of scabrous hands from behind, black wings flapping inside his mind, rotting stench at the edge of sanity.

Turning, shooting, black hole opening like an eye in the fireplace stones. The room is solid again, slanting, sloping angles, family back in the painting, eyes blank, mouths mirthless. Just a room, just like it was before.

Something slams against the front door, dust sifting down from above.

_Little pig, little pig, let me in_

“Not by the hair of my chinny chin,” he whispers and then laughs, high pitched shrill ringing in his ears.

Wetness in his eyes blinked back, and he’s tired. Fuck, so tired. He can’t do this alone anymore.

_Cas, for the love of all that’s holy, make this a safe place._

Fluttering of wings, short, sharp paces to where Dean stands. “I can’t, Dean. I can barely--”

“Cas… I need you,” Dean pleads.

“I told you I have no dominion here.” Castiel shakes his head, forlorn, edges of his form flickering.

“Then why was I safe, last time?”

“That was not my doing.” The admission is rife with guilt, leaving Dean confused.

Slam banging clatter at the door, mist slowly seeping in, wicked twist and curl through wooden cracks. Their eyes dart as one toward the sound, then back to each other.

“I’m sorry, Dean. I wish I could--” Castiel’s eyes, liquid blue, regret reflected back at Dean as he dissolves.

Fog curls in loose tendrils, creeping across the floor. He supposes it’s better than refried cannibal munchkins. Then again, he could shoot those. How the fuck is he supposed to fight this?

If he ever gets out of here… no one will ever believe him. He isn’t sure _he_ believes it.

Hell is the only thing that equals this.

Maybe he _is_ in Hell. Maybe he took a wrong turn at Albuquerque and ended up dead smack in the pit.

Or maybe this town is on a thin spot. Hell bleeding through into the world.

It’s the only thing that makes sense—if you can call it that. It’s not a revelation that makes him want to shout with joy. But it puts some things in perspective.

_You’re only just now figuring this out?_

His head throbs with slow, leaden heat. He’s a little slow on the uptake. It’s not like he’s had time to sit around and think through his concussion and being chased by the dead.

 _We can fight about it later_ , he decides, jaw setting. _Time to run._

Running sounds like a great idea, the best ever, brain sending messages to his legs to get started, go. His body couldn’t care less. Muscles that won’t obey, quivering, failing.

_Fuck._

Head like something out of a horror movie, stretching, expanding to take in the swell of his brain as he understands. But nothing else responds, nerves dancing on end, electrified and motionless. He’s at the end of his reserves.

Coils of fog caress him, dancing over skin as they pin him, almost gently, against the wooden floor.

“Dean,” they whisper, consuming him.

* * *

IX.

The room is dark again, shapes and forms lost to its embrace.

“You shouldn’t have come,” Sam breathes, shaking his head. The faint orange glow of the town outside catches on the edge of his features, the rest lost to shadow. “Not for this.”

Familiar weight pressed against him, firm muscle and soft spaces between like home. Bare skin, for miles and miles, and it’s all he wants, all he needs. Sam so close, heated breaths breathed into his lungs. Slide of Sam’s mouth against his, slotting and fitting perfectly, sweet slip and glide.

Yes. No. “This isn’t why I came.”

“Yes it is.” Pupils blown wide, pulling him in. “This is _why_ you come, Dean. For me. Every…” Sam’s body screwing down against his, “single…” scorching heat clenching around his cock, driving deep, “time.”

Feel of Sam grinding into him, consuming him. He wants this, fuck—wants this more than he knows how to say—his hands all over Sam’s skin, mouth a wet smear against his brother’s. He’s missed this. It’s part of the whole fucked up thing between them. Part he wouldn’t trade.

But it isn’t why he came here. God, it feels so good, but it isn’t why.

“I came here for _you_ ,” he says, fingers splayed across Sam’s thigh muscles, eyes flicking to meet his brother’s with intent. “Not this.”

“This is what you’ve always wanted, Dean. What we’ve both always wanted. Don’t lie.” Shuddering of his brother’s lips against his, body tightening, thrusting down against him, taking his breath away. Tongue flickering against Dean’s lips, snaking inside.

This _is_ what they’ve both always wanted. Fuck, Sam feels like sinking into heaven. Like sinking inside everything he’s ever known. Velvet clench of muscles, nails digging into skin, tearing away bits and pieces.

Ripping each other apart.

It isn’t pretty, what they have. It isn’t ever going to be proud, or decent, or anywhere near normal. This is part of what they’ve got.

But it’s not all there is. His brother’s worth way more than a fuck against the floorboards in a haunted, thin spot town.

And Sam would know that—if Sam was fucking him at all.

Fighting for breath, fighting for air, Dean digs his fingers into hips.

“Tell me where he is.”

There’s understanding in his brother’s eyes, a sharp, amused knowing. Slow dissolve, morphing of Sam’s face into mist, solidifying into different angles, skin wrinkled, expression sly. The corner of the man’s mouth curves, hard smirk, rough hand touching Dean’s face.

His eyes flash yellow in the darkness.

“Dean-o. Call me a softie, but it’s almost cute, how you still pick denial every time.”

Slow, deliberate grind down the line of his cock, and God, fuck, no, it shouldn’t feel good.

“I could always count on you to ask the stupid questions.”

“Stop it,” Dean gasps.

“And make useless appeals.” Palm shoving against Dean’s face, plane of his cheek against the wooden floor, relentless feel of this thing fucking him.

“Sam’s dead.” Throaty chuckle against his ear, and it feels so real, so goddamned real. Hand closing over his nose, his mouth, cutting off the air. Fingers wrapping around the curve of his throat.

“Traded your soul for Sammy’s… so sure,” the demon whispers, undulating against him. “What did it get you, Dean?” Squeezing burst of fingers around his throat. “Lucifer wearing Sam as a meatsuit, falling into the pit.” Words given into his mouth on rancid breath. “And now you’ve lost him again.”

Lungs fluttering in his chest, straining, grip like steel holding him.

“You’re ours.”

_You’re in the jungle, baby. You’re gonna die._

Darkness closes in all around, vision dimming behind a shower of sparks, gold, red, incandescent white.

“Welcome home, Dean-o.” Whispered breath, kiss painted like filth against his cheek.

_You belong here._

If this is Hell…

Hell was belonging. Hell was without doubt, once he let go.

Spinning on the edge of unconsciousness, blackness turning like a globe in his vision, eating up the world, the temptation to let go is so strong.

It’s this. It’s this that’s hard.

Breathing. Caring. Fearing. Losing. Deciding.

This would be comfort. It would be an end. He’d be welcomed.

_\--Welcome home--_

He could die here. The thought isn’t new, striking him a different way; solace instead of torment. Itch behind his eyes, almost maddening, throbbing in his head, unspoken voices working inside his mind. Easy. It could be so easy. Just let himself sink, fall into it. Layers and layers beneath the empty skin of oily blackness, breath running out, feet kicking, last desperate struggle—and then peace. 

Falling down, down, down to the bottom.

Heavy weight of the amulet burning against his throat, vocal chords caught in the blaze. It doesn’t matter. 

This is the easiest way. 

Death is... easier…

\--thoughts spiraling away—

but it… it isn’t…

This isn’t real.

The scratches on his boots, jeans hanging in tatters around them, dried blood on skin, jagged pain in his head, weight of the amulet against his pulse—Sam. Those things are real.

**\--Tick-tock--**

Ragged, gasping battle for air, white fire filling his mind.

_\--Tick-tock--_

Awareness snaps, fracturing, splintering, shattering into a million, tiny, jagged shards. Rushing void of emptiness left behind, lungs struggling, straining, on the verge of death.

**\--Tick-tock--**

Sam.

_//Hum of the Impala, long hair framing a smile from the passenger side//_

_//Side torn open, claws ripped to the bone, baring him, open, fragile//_

_//Fragile body in his arms, already going cold, bleeding out like the rain on their skin//_

_//Skin, feverish beneath his touch, wanting, needing//_

_//Need you, Dean. Please.//_

**\--Tick-tock--**

Heartbeats suspended outside time, slowing with complete, perfect clarity.

**\--Tick-tock--**

**\--Tick-tock--**

_Need you._

_Please._

Fragmented pieces pause, gather like a storm—and every single gleaming, razor-blade edged moment of his life rushes back in, violent spray piercing his chest. Pulling to each other like magnets, shredding, making whole. A single ball of power growing, rising behind the hollow of his throat.

Even if Sam’s dead, Dean’s never leaving without him.

Yank of his chin turned against the weight of the demon’s hand, meeting yellow eyes.

“No.” Soft, disbelieving denial uttered from the demon’s throat.

Face divided into light and darkness by the glow of the amulet—

The air around them bends, whirling, slowing, compressing… grinding to a halt.

Silence.

And then it _explodes_.

Power flying from the space beneath his skin, nuclear blast; light so white his eyes close, brilliance imprinting shapes against retinas through skin. Force shaking him to the core, skin against him disintegrating to mist, evaporating.

“I’m not yours,” he grates, voice rasping, words echoing dully in his ears.

He burns as bright as a star, white light devouring him.

* * *

X.

His eyes open against a thin film of sleep gummed between, sudden breath drawn inward, body sitting bolt upright from the floor. Pain spirals through his head, sends him reeling, sticky feel of blood trickling over skin.

Hand grabbing for the amulet, closing around metal, cool within his palm. Brain wheeling, pitching inside his skull, wild whir of color, and he almost topples backward.

The amulet… how did it… how did he…?

The thought flies, abandoning him, realizing… There’s someone in the room with him, standing in front of the window.

“You’re not going to quit, are you?” the voice is low, resonating through the room. Dean turns, tendons in his neck creaking, sees his brother, bare to the top of his jeans, skin painted in flat, gray tones of light.

“Sam?” Dean’s voice is hoarse, too loud, echoing off the walls, sending spikes of pain through his brain. He’s not dreaming—daylight filters in, gray, watery through half-opened blinds. Everything too real, dust itching against skin, blood weaving slow trails down his forehead. He’s here, alive, and Sam is—

Sam is _here_.

“Sam.” He’s up, balance swaying across his feet.

His brother turns toward him slowly, dull light shifting across his face, his chest. “I know where we are now.”

_Do you know where you are?_

“I know because you wouldn’t stop.”

“Never stop.” The words are given with effort, feet stumbling forward. Inside this gray, dilapidated, sagging house and all he wants is to touch Sam, feel him.

Sam opens his arms, and Dean’s body falls forward against the firm warmth of his brother’s chest, arms wrapping around familiar, broad shoulders.

“Sam.” Voice rough, rugged with wear, laced with shards of glass. He’s worn out, empty and used up. Doesn’t matter now. Not now, not with Sam in his arms, real, solid, breathing, heart beating strong against Dean’s. “Knew I’d find you.”

“I wish you hadn’t,” Sam whispers, regret in his voice, pain.

Flash of his brother’s mouth against his, lower lip catching Dean’s.

“You should’ve quit, Dean.”

Dean doesn’t understand, doesn’t care, holding Sam’s face between the angle of his hands. “We have to go.”

“I can’t,” Sam whispers, the words a terrible secret, a warning, a plea as he pushes Dean away.

“Sam. We have to leave. Now.”

Sam’s eyes are glistening, filled with sadness. “You should’ve _quit_ , Dean.”

“I should’ve left you here?” Sam’s not making sense.

“Yes.” Sam utters the word like it means something, like it’s an answer. “You’ve still got a chance. You can leave.” 

“Are you crazy? I’m not leaving you. We _both_ need to leave, before this place does something else to us.”

“I tried to protect you. But I can’t control it, Dean. This place…” Sam’s eyes plead with him.

“What the hell are you--?”

The world crackles and shifts, brick and wood and mortar shuddering. Blood and viscera rise like vines from the floor, blind worms creeping across the surface of the walls. Weaving into a pulsing, sick mass, tendrils alive and twisting like malignant snakes as they devour the room. 

“Sam.” Dean grabs hold of Sam’s shoulder, pulling, tugging, need to get away thrashing inside his brain like a caged wild animal. 

Fingers sink into his brother’s flesh deeper than anything was ever meant to, sick sound of bones crackling like kindling in his grip.

Dean opens his mouth and Sam’s flesh blackens, burning before his eyes. Skin a hard crust of ash over muscle and bone, flakes breaking free, rising on the heated air.

_You’re in the jungle, baby_

He can feel the threads tethering him to reality fraying, splitting.

“You should have left it alone, Dean.” Words mangled, descending into guttural syllables, Sam’s jaw pulling away from his face. Teeth rotting by moments, black as his sunken skull, jawbone falling open against his chest. Eyes sinking into their sockets, whites turning up before they’re devoured by blackness.

“No.” Dean breathes out the word, feet moving backward, stomach curling into a tight knot, balls crawling into the space where his stomach used to be. Mind a gibbering, cavorting creature, madness swirling at the edges.

No no no no. Not Sam. Not _Sam_ , godammit. 

Room eroding, paint withering at the touch of living vines. Familiar jigsaw buzz eating up the world, humming thrum sinking straight to bone.

_“Remember where you are, Dean.”_

Words whispered, voice so familiar, echoing from somewhere outside him.

_“Don’t become lost.”_

Clinging to the sound, Castiel’s voice, deep and rough, edges cut sharp and fine as a key that turns inside his brain. Click as it gives way, and…

Memory ignites, pinpricks of light flaring across consciousness.

_\--“Can you send me inside?”_

_“There’s no way of knowing what’s in there, Dean.”_

_“Sam’s in there.”--_

Scraps of blackened flesh cling to bones tall and angular, jittering as they move toward Dean.

_**This is what I am.** _

Dean can hear Sam almost as clearly as if he’d actually spoken.

_**This is what they made me.** _

Burnt and broken, bones turned at strange angles, tatters of flesh streaming away in waves.

_\--“ Whatever happens … will be reality as you know it. You’ll feel it, live it.” Castiel shakes his head. “If you get lost… I won’t be able to help you.”_

_“I’m going to bring him back.”_

_“If you don’t, you’ll be trapped there forever.”--_

Flash of Castiel’s face, so severe, and on the bed…

_\--On the bed lies his brother’s body, slack and pale and unconscious. Twenty-four hours. It’s been twenty-four hours since--_

Since…

Since the wall in Sam’s mind broke down.

 _\--This is what they made me.--_

_Do you know where you are?_

Hard draw of breath into Dean’s lungs, taste of ash—taste of his brother burning.

He knows where he is. God. Where he’s been all this time.

He’s inside Sam’s head.

* * *

XI.

From somewhere far away, there’s a ringing sound, like a phone chiming and buzzing and dancing.

_“Hi, Dean. Everyone you love is fucking dead. They’re deader than dogshit, dead as a fucking doorknob, and they’re all right here, waiting for you. We’re **all** waiting for you.”_

Sam is skeletal, deteriorating in fast forward, sharp, boney fingers reaching for Dean’s face. Scent of rot filling his nostrils, blood drawn beneath jagged tips. He can smell that, too, metallic underscore almost lost.

Electricity thick in the air, fine hairs on the backs of Dean’s arms standing up. Buzz of angry clippers, eating up the world, working inside his head, and everything is heavy… so heavy. Lead through his veins, sinking into his muscles, down to the marrow. Vibration all through him, so violent that his teeth chatter, tip caught between, drawing blood.

_Little pig, little pig, let me in._

He falls to his knees beneath the weight, teeth neatly severing the flesh at the tip of his tongue. Swirl of coppery taste, pain barely felt, curls of ash catching in the rigid hairs on his forearms.

“Sam.” Word uttered like a train crash, like everything that matters, throat dry and cracked.

The room swirls, a top tilted on its side, drunken, sickening, jerky sway. Tendrils and paint flecks rain down, sticky coating of crimson spattering his skin as reality pops like a soap bubble, revealing the truth of what’s beneath.

It sings, madness filling Dean’s mind. Emptiness caught across eternity, barren landscape filled with the twitching corpses of the not quite dead. Filled with their suffering, flame and sacrifice, and there are so _many_ of them. Fields and fields of them, lined up on pikes, bodies slowly decaying and still struggling, huge, dark-winged birds sweeping down to taste their softer parts, demons grinning, poking at soft insides, testing the limits of flesh.

Screaming, God, they’re screaming, cacophony a mad symphony of buzzing that plucks the strings inside his mind, louder and louder, sanity fraying with every sound.

It’s not the worst. Tears frozen on his cheeks, he knows what’s beyond this; knows it intimately.

He _remembers_.

Made of flesh now, his fragile casing not meant for such atrocities. Bones vibrate with the screams of the undying, teeth chattering, cold and terrified, mind yammering, stuttering, center tearing roots from the ground, thick ripping sound, and he can’t… he can’t remember this, can’t know it. Can’t stand for Sam to know it.

_\--Welcome home, Dean--_

Each word strikes him like a blow, icicles piercing his heart.

No. Oh god, oh fuck no. He can’t stay here. He can’t go back to… to…

He can’t leave Sam here, either. The thought rises like smoke, mind grasping for it, wisps of vapor caught between, barely enough.

“Sam.” Word guttered and smeared across thick, hot air, heat warping and twisting it into a wreckage of sound. Hard swallow, dry throat, clumsy heat-chapped lips stumbling. “You... have to… stop it.”

Everything spins and skips like a broken record, Dean and Sam standing still at the center. Sam is just Sam, flesh and blood again. The same Sam he’s always been, hazel eyes terrified, streaming tears down his cheeks.

“I’m not strong enough.”

_\--This is what they made of me.--_

Volcanic air singing Dean’s lungs, pushed back out, mind spinning, dancing on the edge of the void, the edge of Hell itself, blackness and flame. “Fight it.”

“You should have run.” Hands held outward, vaguely upward, like begging Dean for forgiveness. 

“I’m sorry, Dean.”

Chains burst from Sam’s palms, rough edges shredding skin as they pass through, winding up, around his arms, burrowing in skin, hundreds of contact points drawing blood. They encompass his arms, crawling around his shoulders, down his waist, wrapping in circles around his head, snaking down his thighs. Lengths tightening, sinking into muscle, chafing against bones, and what he becomes is even worse than the burning horror he’d been, skin crimped, bleeding profusely, still human, chains sinking into the space between his jaw bones, yanking hard, mouth torn asunder in a spray of blood.

Limbs leaden, blood thundering in his ears, lungs laboring for breath in the scorching air, scream a forceless whistle through his swollen throat. 

His brother, a horrible, distorted thing, crumpling into unnatural shapes, bones snapping, skin tearing open. Broken remains twitching, inching toward him. 

No. No no no not real not real he knows it’s not real they’re in Sam’s head—

Touch of shredded skin against him, mouth a ragged gash, eyes misshapen and bulging between metal chain links, voices screaming ceaselessly in his head—

He remembers the way skin had parted so easily beneath his instruments, muscle and bone and fear revealed, and how he’d laughed, oh how he’d laughed and laughed and _LAUGHED_.

_“It was so easy, Dean. Remember how easy it was? How much you loved it? It’ll be even better this time. We’ll let you kill Sam, over and over again for eternity. And you’ll laugh, oh how you’ll laugh and laugh and laugh and **LAUGH** \--”_

“Shut… up…” he rasps, brain pitching wild inside his skull, red spots dancing at the edge of his vision.

Sam’s head. They’re… in Sam’s head. This… all of this… it’s just Hell crammed inside Sam’s skull. Not real.

They have to get out of here.

Gears turn sluggishly in Dean’s mind, everything slowing, grinding to a halt around him. One hand on his brother’s broken body, voices yammering inside his mind, electricity buzzing in the fillings in his teeth. Focus. Come on, Dean. 

_Think._

The night he was safe… Sam did that. And… the amulet, that was Sam, too. Pieces of _his_ Sam, pushing through the horror.

“Sam. Come on, Sam. Know you can… stop this.”

_“We’re sorry, you’re fucked. Please hang up and kiss your ass goodbye.”_

Twitching, bloody thing beneath his fingers, hurting his heart, pushing over into madness at the edges of his mind. This isn’t Sam, he thinks, clinging to the thread. _His_ Sam is here, somewhere. Dean has to find him.

Gravity crushing, bones bent beneath the weight, knees splaying apart, face forced to the floor.

_“It’ll be so easy, like it was before. Just the way I taught you.”_

Alistair’s voice, lilting and oddly clipped, and Dean’s blood runs cold.

Alistair’s dead.

_“We’re **all** dead, Dean. We’re waiting for you. And oh, we have such **plans**.”_

Rise of wicked laughter, filling the spaces between buzzing, echoing down to the core.

Brain seizing, shuddering, horror expanding to fill him, riding the lines of his nerves like jagged adrenaline in reverse, hairs on the back of his neck standing up.

No.

_Sam_

The word fills him like a command, bright center of a star. It’s all he’s got, all he’s ever had.

His hand rises slowly, clumsily reaching for the only link he has left. Fighting against intense gravity, fingers trembling along his collar bone, feeling until they close around the amulet, burn of metal like fire against his skin as his eyes shut tight, mind reaching out through it, following the only link it knows how to reach.

“Please.” Lips shuddering against the baking heat, white light crawling over him. 

“Sam.” Word whispered like a talisman, last, desperate chance for salvation.

Light radiates from the amulet, so white, piercing his eye sockets through the lids, striking his brain like a railroad spike, body thrown backward, head crashing into solid ground, inky spirals of blackness climbing up to fill him as the air around him ripples, shuddering, tight and close against skin, squeezing before it explodes outward with concussive force—

The world spins like a tornado in reverse, snatched away like a tablecloth, Dean pulling in the opposite direction, hands grasping the ruin of Sam’s body as they’re ripped away, flying, spinning, hurtling breakneck through open air, up and up and—

Fractured reality dissolving rapidly, feel of Sam’s mind blending into his, how deeply they’ve been connected all this time, pure essence of his brother so intimate.

_”Go back to Cas, Dean.”_

_“Not leaving you.”_

_“You have to.”_

_“Gonna… take you back with me…”_

_“Without the wall...”_

_“You can fight it.”_

_“I can’t.”_

_“You stay…and I stay…”_

_“You don’t know what you’re saying.”_

_“The fuck I don’t.”_

_Sam’s voice is resigned and too sad, reverberating through Dean. “Not much of a choice.”_

_“You expected… anything else?”_

_“…No.”_

_There’s a long pause between where their minds overlap._

_“I love you, Dean.”_

He can feel Sam strengthening, flexing inside him, firming before he spins away from Dean. Dean reaches out to grab him, hurtling upward through empty space, faster now, faster, his body coming apart, scattered into molecules, Sam’s name the last word on his lips.

* * *

XII.

Every muscle spasms so hard that Dean feels the bed jolt beneath him, eyes snapping open.

He sees sickly green walls behind framed pictures of painted fruit, their shapes grotesque mockeries of the real thing. For a split second, he isn’t sure where he is—and then he blinks, reality asserting itself as he remembers these walls, the ancient, ugly paintings.

He’s… he’s back in the motel room.

He sits up, sucking in a desperate breath of blessedly cool, normal air, head already turning to see if Sam—

Sam’s eyes blink open, lashes fluttering hard against the gray light filling the room.

“Dean.” The relief in Castiel’s expression so clear and pure, mirroring Dean’s own, and he doesn’t think to stop Castiel’s arms closing around him, lost in the confusion of being alive.

“I…” Castiel says, drawing back, arms falling awkwardly away from Dean. “You went too deep. I thought you were gone.”

“I almost was.” 

He moves from the bed, finding his muscles strong and ready, fingers brushing his forehead, not the slightest sign of a wound. His mind is clear as he sits down on the bed next to Sam, arms reaching out to pull him close.

He can feel Sam’s arms rise, hugging him back, even though he’s obviously as confused as Dean feels.

“I should let you two have some time,” Castiel remarks.

Dean draws back, face turning to look at Castiel. “Thank you.”

A slight smile quirks the corner of Castiel’s mouth, and then he’s gone.

“You okay?” Dean asks, voice gruff, hand settling on Sam’s shoulder.

Sam’s eyes flicker right, then left, testing the idea, and then slowly, he nods, sighing out a heavy breath. “I think so.”

He _looks_ okay. Pale, a little shaken, faintest shadow of circle beneath his eyes, but he looks okay. 

“I… almost can’t believe I’m here.”

“Tell me about,” Dean murmurs, nodding agreement. 

“I didn’t think I’d…” Sam trails off, and Dean can see everything his brother is about to say. “Dean --”

“Don’t,” Dean whispers, gruff, shaking his head. “You’re back. We’re okay.”

Sam’s expression is drawn, tight, as he hesitates. “It’s there, though, Dean. Hell’s still there. I’m holding it together, holding it down right now… but I can feel it, under the surface. Sooner or later it’s going to come out again.”

Dean’s teeth gnaw at his lower lip. “We’ll deal with that _if_ it happens.”

Sam nods, understanding. No matter how bad it gets, it can’t be worse than what they just went through.

Unconsciously, his fingers rise to his chest, reaching for the amulet. 

It’s gone.

The lack of it has always been a reminder to Dean of the distance, the differences between them. Distance gone now, eaten up by everything that’s happened. He’s surprised by how much it hurts all over again to have it gone, tries not to let it show, but he can tell by Sam’s expression that Sam sees it anyway.

They both glance away, and Dean starts to move from the bed. Sam hand touches his arm, gentle fingertips that make Dean pause, looking back.

“Wait.”

It’s Sam that moves instead, looking for the bag he brought into this motel room what seems like a thousand years ago, hands digging deep into its innards, soft snick of a zipper opening somewhere inside. Sam pulls his hands out, one hand fisted around something as he sits back down, turning to face Dean.

“I wanted to…” Sam hesitates, struggling with the words, seems to almost change his mind. 

“It just never seemed like the right time, you know?” he finally says, hand opening.

The amulet lies against the center of his palm, black length of cord curled in loops and whirls around it.

Dean looks at it for a long moment, then nods once, reaching out, closing his fingers around it. He works the knots in the cord and draws it down around his neck, tightening them until it sits exactly where it’s supposed to. He doesn’t say anything, doesn’t need to. They both know what it means.

“You hungry?” he asks after a moment. “Thirsty? You’ve been out even long than I ha--” 

Dean breaks off at the look in his brother’s eyes, and then Sam’s face tilts forward, mouth meeting Dean’s breathlessly.

Tongue sliding between his brother’s lips as they meet, instinct taking over as his hands close around Sam’s face. Sam feels good, warm and alive and breathing, and suddenly he needs—more than anything—to touch Sam, make sure he’s really here, make sure they both are.

No tricks now, his brother’s body beneath his, clothes peeled away, skin laid out underneath his tongue, muscles hitching and rising with every touch Dean knows he loves. Fingertips gliding over his brother’s skin, teasing, mouth dipping lower, tasting. Taste of sweat, all the tiny sounds his brother makes like music to his ears, so familiar, remembered.

It may be fucked up, will always be wrong, but in this moment, it feels closer to right than it ever has. Feels like comfort as he opens his brother up with slow, languid swirls of his tongue, makes him come, one hand fisted around his brother’s aching hard cock, body twitching and spasming around the muscle of Dean’s tongue wriggling inside him.

Dean runs his hand through the slick pool gathered on Sam’s stomach, uses it to slick himself, hissing at the feel of his hand against his own skin. Pushes his brother’s legs up and apart, fitting between with a slow thrust, sinking into Sam by inches, teeth nearly biting through his lower lip as his brother lifts his hips, taking Dean deeper, urging him on faster.

Molten heat squeezing around his cock, so fucking tight and good. Moment of familiar shame passing through his mind like a shadow, flitting dark wings and then gone as he loses himself in the sensation of dragging out of Sam slow, brother’s hands digging nails into the round of Dean’s ass, teeth and lips worrying at Dean’s throat, sending shivers rippling down his spine. 

He pins Sam’s legs on either side of his broad chest and then snaps his hips, fucking Sam deep and hard with merciless strokes, until they’re both panting and breathless, sweating and clutching at each other, all hungry hands and mouths, hearts beating thunder, two sets of muscles locking down slow until Sam’s clenched like a vise around his cock, and Dean mutters out a curse, coming so goddamned hard that he’s sure his brain blew out the back of his skull. Riding out the last tremors as Sam strokes himself and comes again, muscles fluttering around Dean, making him quiver and stutter and hiss, cock spurting out a few last, weak bursts.

Sam’s mouth finds his, slow, sliding tangle of their tongues as they shiver out the last of their pleasure, and Dean lets himself be drawn in, intimate and as it is, too worn out and too grateful that Sam’s here to protest, shape of the amulet pressed between their chests.

 

*

After, lying next to his brother, Dean breathes heavily, staring up at the water-stained ceiling. Somewhere in the distance, a door slams, and he finds his nerves sliding right to the edge, panic almost taking hold before his mind catches it.

They’re not in Hell anymore. He’s as safe as he ever has been in the real world.

Still, he feels jumpy, part of his head still caught in that horrific place, and he thinks he’ll feel a hell of a lot better once they get on the road, put some distance between them and all this. Somewhere where the paint isn’t peeling from the walls, where it isn’t so easy to imagine it shedding flakes, revealing screaming faces underneath.

Sam seems to share his eagerness to be gone, if the way they both hasten to get cleaned up and packed is any indication.

The Impala waits outside the door, black paint and gleaming chrome, perfect as Dean remembers it.

* * *

XIII.

They stop at a gas station on their way out of town, and even though they’re the only ones here, it’s so normal that it’s almost weird, Sam exiting the car as Dean fills the tank. Everything like it always was.

Dean finishes the tank off and slides behind the wheel, closing the door behind him.

On second thought, maybe it is weird, even here; at the outskirts of nowhere, that they’d be the only ones that need to use a gas station.

Or maybe he’s still just paranoid.

Fingertips move to turn the radio dial until he finds something besides static. This far in the middle of nowhere, he can only find one station.

Outside, the sky is gray and heavy with promise, gas station deserted, pumps standing like short rows of sentries without purpose now that he’s done.

Inside, the music swells, low indistinguishable sound coalescing into clear familiarity, chills shivering up his spine.

_~And still those voices are calling from far away,_  
Wake you up in the middle of the night, just to hear them say  
Welcome to the Hotel California~ 

Dread coils in his belly, settling like a leaden weight. This… this is the song that was playing on the radio when he…

_\-- The windshield wipers of the Impala slap back and forth in a hollow, repetitive rhythm, flakes of snow smearing against the glass.--_

That wasn’t real. The song, the crash, the town, everything that came after—none of it was real.

This is real; Sam walking across the gas station parking lot with that long, ambling gait, brown bag in hand, hair swinging back and forth across his face.

Dean swallows hard against the emotion rising in his throat, steering wheel clenched tight between white knuckles. He might be traumatized by this song for the rest of his life, but—

He can see it—tiny flake of white drifting down from the gray slate sky, dancing this way and that before it spirals, settling on the hood of the Impala. Perfectly formed ice crystals cutting a unique pattern against polished black in the instant before they dissolve against the heat of the engine.

Snow. It’s just snow. They’re okay. They made it out.

_If you didn’t, how would you know?_

The thought stops Dean cold, knuckles flaring pain in protest around the steering wheel.

 _How would either of you know, Dean?_ He can almost hear the dead voice hiss, smell the rot and filth.

Sam opens the door and slides in beside him, smell of hot dogs hitting Dean’s nose, cold Coke pressed against the back of Dean’s hand, the condensation sweating a smear of wetness into skin.

It feels _real_.

_“Whatever happens … will be reality as you know it. You’ll feel it, live it.”_

“You okay?” Sam asks after a moment.

_~Mirrors on the ceiling, pink champagne on ice_  
And she said  
We are all just prisoners here, of our own device~ 

Dean snaps the radio off, Coke shoved between his thighs, grabbing the shifter, pulling it into gear. 

“Just need to put some more miles behind us.”

Wheels catch brief and sharp against asphalt as they turn from the parking lot, pushing out to the highway.

From the sky above, fat flakes of snow begin to fall, drifting silently to the ground.

 

 

FINIS

  
  



End file.
